Remembering Niki Lauda
The passing of Niki Lauda last year only underlined everything that he achieved in life. He was a three-time Formula 1 world champion and an idol for an entire generation, to whom he delivered a reborn Ferrari in the mid 1970s: putting the team back into title contention.
He was also a man who was effectively given a second life, following the fiery accident at the Nurburgring on August 1, 1976 that so nearly claimed him more than 40 years ago.
But Niki was constantly looking for change and innovation throughout his career, going from being a world champion to an airline executive to a paddock guru.
Always from one thing straight to the next. And from 2012 right up until the day he died, he was non-executive president of the Mercedes Formula 1 team: still the squad to beat.
Niki personified speed. But it would be a mistake to remember only the Austrian's driving career, as dramatic as it was. In total he claimed 25 grand prix victories and three world championships, which could so easily have been four had it not been for the unforgettable fire at the Nurburgring.
Not to mention the incredible story that followed, with his retirement from the final race at Fuji in monsoon-like conditions at the end of a truly dramatic 1976 season. It's the stuff of Hollywood movies and indeed there was one: Rush, from 2013, with Daniel Bruhl playing Lauda.
The real Niki decided to become a racing champion before he even had his driving licence. He came from a noble family of Viennese bankers, so Niki first asked for some financial help from his paternal grandfather to kick-start his career.
“Money to go racing with?” came the outraged answer. “If a Lauda is going to be in the newspapers it should be in the financial pages!”
Niki, who was barely 20 at the time, didn't flinch. He merely set in place an alternative plan: a no-nonsense approach that would serve him well for the rest of his life.
He went straight to a rival bank instead, Raiffeisen, to cash in the life insurance policy that his grandfather had given him when he came of age. This unconventional ‘sponsorship' programme provoked fury but allowed him to immediately climb the ladder in single-seaters. Formula 1 had just got a step closer.
In the mid-70s, at the height of his powers with Ferrari, he was gripped by the aviation bug. He qualified as a pilot and in 1979 suddenly left Formula 1. At the time he was driving for Brabham: the team he had chosen after his acrimonious divorce from Ferrari two years earlier, when he refused to drive the last two races because he was already mathematically world champion. As for Brabham, he suddenly left them in the middle of Friday free practice in Montreal, uttering the immortal phrase: “I'm tired of going round in circles.”
Three days later and he was already on the Boeing 747 simulator in Seattle. Nobody knew it then, but Lauda Air was the next step. Yet this was a source of pain as well as pleasure. In 1982, also to plug a few financial holes that the business was leaking, he returned to the cockpit. And in 1984, with McLaren, he duly won a third world title. Once again he retired (at the end of 1985) and embarked on a new aviation project: Air Niki. That airline is still around now in a different guise as part of Ryanair.
Niki himself often took the pilot's seat at Air Lauda, inaugurating new routes between Austria, Italy, the Balearics and Cuba. There was enough going on to fill up three lifetimes.
Yet Andreas Nikolaus Lauda – known as just ‘Niki' to his friends and the world – felt he could still do more. He was asked to run the sporting side of Ferrari by newly-arrived president Luca di Montezemolo at the end of 1991, then politely invited to leave by Jean Todt a few years later. As the year 2000 approached, he performed the same role for the newborn Jaguar Racing team (with, it's fair to say, not a huge amount of luck).
In 2012 he was back in the saddle: this time as non-executive president of Mercedes-AMG in Formula 1. Having just celebrated his 63rd birthday, Lauda embarked on what would become his final sporting adventure, persuading Lewis Hamilton to part ways with McLaren and join what would become a dominant force in the sport. By the end of 2014, Niki and the Anglo-German squad had celebrated their first drivers' and manufacturers' titles together: the first of so many.
Sadly, he wouldn't live to see the most recent ones. Niki passed away quietly on May 20, 2019, in Vienna, aged 70 after a period of ill health. But his legacy is immortal. And for those who want to go into much more detail about Niki's life, there's an excellent new biography of him that has just been released, written by seasoned Formula 1 journalist Maurice Hamilton. It's well worth a read, and a timely reminder of just what a colossus of motorsport the Austrian world champion was.
All the materials form part of the company's historical heritage which is now preserved in the Historical Archive of the Pirelli Foundation www.fondazionepirelli.org
